Lama Ole’s answer:
Actually, pride is very important for development in the Diamond Way. However, it must not be the exclusive type pride that degrades others, but rather the inclusive kind—the ability to experience the beautiful, exciting, and fantastic aspects of everything and everyone. This is the positive, useful kind that we call vajra—or “diamond”—pride.
The exclusive, negative pride is where one judges others, thinking, “I am good and the others are not good.” It narrows the situation and difficulties arise. And those difficulties are usually one’s own problems, which arise again and again because they are the projections of one’s own mind. The world is a mirror for one’s own face. If you can see a lot of good things in your fellow human beings, then it is a sign that the negative pride has been removed from your mind to a great extent. But if instead you mostly see others’ mistakes, then you know you still have some work to do. Try to see everybody as a Buddha—to always discover something good in them. Then there will also be good feedback for your own mind.
Development starts when we meet people and are able to give them something—in the sense that we put happiness, beauty, and meaning into the encounter, anticipating a good connection. Thus we reach a level where a relationship of mutual learning begins. People start to learn from each other. They grow, new possibilities develop, difficulties fall away, and in the end there is a pure mandala. Also on the relative level, it is so easy: those who give are always rich and experience heaven, but those who have to hold on to everything and can never get enough experience hell.